1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to a bent wafer and a PCB assembly for a refrigerator provided with the same capable of compactly mounting wafers on a PCB mounted to a refrigerator body and relatively decreasing a size of the PCB.
2. Description of the Background Art
In general, a refrigerator maintains a freezing chamber and a chilling chamber in a cold state as a refrigerating cycle system is mounted therein, an evaporator constructing a refrigerating cycle system generates cool air, and the cool air circulates in the freezing chamber and the chilling chamber. A user puts food items in the freezing chamber and the chilling chamber.
The refrigerator includes a refrigerator body commonly provided with a freezing chamber and a chilling chamber; and a door mounted at the refrigerator body, for opening and closing the two chambers. Also, a control unit is provided at one side of the refrigerator body, wherein the control unit controls operation of a refrigerating cycle system according to a load of the freezing or chilling chamber and also controls temperatures of the two chambers.
The control unit includes a plurality of PCBs provided with wafers.
As known, the PCB is made by forming a circuit made of a conductive material on or in an insulation substrate having a predetermined size. The PCBs are classified according to configuration of the circuit. For example, the PCBs are classified into a single layer PCB in which a circuit is formed at one side surface of the insulation substrate, a double layer PCB in which circuits are formed at both side surfaces of the insulation substrate, respectively, and a multi-layer PCB in which a plurality of circuits are formed in the insulation substrate.
FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a-PCB for a refrigerator provided with a conventional wafers, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a partially-exploded PCB for a refrigerator provided with the wafers.
As shown, the PCB for a refrigerator provided with the wafers is comprised of a PCB 100 having a quadrangular shape and a plurality of wafers 200 mounted on the PCB 100.
The PCB 100 is formed by forming a plurality of coupling holes on an insulation substrate 100 where a circuit is formed.
The wafer 200 includes a body 210 having a rectangular shape and made of an insulation material and a plurality of pin terminals 220 made of a conductive body and penetratingly coupled to the body 210. The body 210 includes a quadrangular container portion 211 with four sides; a pin-coupled surface portion 212 for covering one side of the quadrangular container portion 211; and pin holes (not shown) penetratingly formed at the pin-coupled surface portion 212 and coupled to the pin terminals 220. A plurality of pin terminals 220 are fixedly coupled to the pin holes, respectively.
The wafers 200 are coupled to the substrate 110 such that their pin terminals 220 are inserted in the coupling holes 120 of the substrate to thereby be connected to a circuit of the substrate 110. When each wafer 200 is coupled to the substrate 110, an opened portion of its body 210 is located at an upper side. The pin terminals 220 coupled to the substrate 110 are fastened to the substrate 110 by soldering or the like.
Plugs connected to each load are coupled to the wafers 200 mounted on the PCB 100 in the above-mentioned manner, respectively. Each plug is coupled to the wafer 200 by being inserted into the opened portion of the wafer body 210.
However, because the wafers 200 are formed in a straight shape on the PCB for a refrigerator provided with the above-described conventional wafers, the wafers 200 cannot be compactly assembled when being mounted on a corner portion of the PCB 100. For this reason, disadvantageously, integration efficiency of the wafers 200 mounted to the PCB 100 becomes low, and the size of the PCB 100 becomes relatively large. Namely, as shown in FIG. 1, because each wafer 200 is formed in a straight shape, in case of mounting the wafers 200 on a corner of the PCB 100, two wafers 200 should be mounted at a right angle to each other. For this reason, the PCB 100 is undesirably lengthened as long as L1 and/or L2 in a longitudinal direction or widened as wide as W1 and/or W2, thereby degrading integration efficiency of the wafers.
Accordingly, a manufacturing cost of the PCB 100 is relatively increased, and the size of the PCB becomes large and is not compact, whereby the PCB undesirably occupies a large space when installed in a refrigerator body and is restricted by its installation space.